When does a joke become a dad joke? When it becomes apparent.
Try not to groan at the corny dad jokes — they might actually be good for kids.
One expert wrote in the British Psychological Society that dad jokes are important to help children learn to be embarrassed and toughen them up to learn that embarrassment isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Marc Hye-Knudsen, a researcher of humor and lab manager at Aarhus University’s Cognition and Behavior Laboratory, explained how teasing and rough-and-tumble play can support a child’s physical and cognitive development.
“By teasingly striking at their children’s egos and emotions without teetering over into bullying, fathers build their children’s resilience and train them to withstand minor attacks and bouts of negative emotion without getting worked up or acting out, teaching them impulse control and emotional regulation,” he wrote.
He continued, “In light of this, it is worth considering dad jokes as a pedagogical tool that may serve a beneficial function for the very children who roll their eyes at them.”
“By continually telling their children jokes that are so bad that they’re embarrassing, fathers may push their children’s limits for how much embarrassment they can handle. They show their children that embarrassment isn’t fatal.”
According to the expert, dad jokes have three levels: puns, anti-humor, and weaponized anti-humor when used to tease, annoy or embarrass children.
The term “dad joke” made it into Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary in 2019 with the definition, “a wholesome joke of the type said to be told by fathers with a punchline that is often an obvious or predictable pun or play on words and usually judged to be endearingly corny or unfunny.”
Dad jokes often are responded to with a groan and an eye roll, but sometimes they’re so unfunny that they’re actually funny, eliciting a little laugh.
Hye-Knudsen encouraged dads to continue with their unfunny jokes — no matter how badly their children want them to stop.
“So to all the dads out there who love telling dad jokes to your kids: don’t let their groans, their eye-rolls, or their palpable irritation stop you. You’re partaking in a long and proud tradition, and your embarrassingly awful jokes may even do them some good,” he said.
“Keep repeating the same old stale puns, year-in and year-out. Through painful repetition, you get to experience the same old joke go through waves of being unfunny and then so unfunny that it becomes funny,” he continued. “One day, you may overhear your children spontaneously telling the same joke, perhaps when they themselves have become parents.”